The early thirteenth-century French prose Lancelot-Grail Cycle (or Vulgate Cycle) brings together the stories of Arthur with those of the Grail, a conjunction of materials that continues to fascinate the Western imagination today. Representing what is probably the earliest large-scale use of prose for fiction in the West, it also exemplifies the taste for big cyclic compositions that shaped much of European narrative fiction for three centuries. A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle is the first comprehensive volume devoted exclusively to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle and its medieval legacy. The twenty essays in this volume, all by internationally known scholars, locate the work in its social, historical, literary, and manuscript contexts. In addition to addressing critical issues in the five texts that make up the Cycle, the contributors convey to modern readers the appeal that the text must have had for its medieval audiences, and the richness of composition that made it compelling. This volume will become standard reading for scholars, students, and more general readers interested in the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, medieval romance, Malory studies, and the Arthurian legends. Contributors: RICHARD BARBER, EMMANUELE BAUMGARTNER, FANNI BOGDANOW, FRANK BRANDSMA, MATILDA T. BRUCKNER, CAROL J. CHASE, ANNIE COMBES, HELEN COOPER, CAROL R. DOVER, MICHAEL HARNEY, DONALD L. HOFFMAN, DOUGLAS KELLY, ELSPETH KENNEDY, NORRIS J. LACY, ROGER MIDDLETON, HAQUIRA OSAKABE, HANS-HUGO STEINHOFF, ALISON STONES, RICHARD TRACHSLER. CAROL DOVER is associate professor of French and director of undergraduate studies, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

The intricate structure and the many different narrative threads of the Prose Lancelot are here skilfully analysed, showing them to be a major new development in literary technique. Thematically and as a narrative technique, interlace, the complex weaving together of many different story-telling strands, comes to its full development in the intriguing conclusion of the Prose Lancelot. The Grail appearson the horizon and although Lancelot's love for Guenevere still makes him the best knight in the world, it becomes clear that this very love disqualifies him from the Grail Quest. Meanwhile, the adventures of a myriad Arthurian knights continue to be followed. This study explains how the interlace works and shows that it is the perfect vehicle for the relation of the events. It discusses the division of the narrative into threads, their interweaving, convergence and divergence, the gradual introduction of the Grail theme and its first climax (the begetting of Galahad), the distribution of information to the audience, the use of dramatic irony and emotions, and many other aspects of this major innovation in story-telling technique. Dr FRANK BRANDSMA is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature (Middle Ages) in the Department of Modern Languages at Utrecht University.

Nigel Bryant presents the Grail story, constructed from the principal motifs and narrative strands of all the original Grail romances.

Ranging from Chretien de Troyes to Shakespeare, this study proposes that the chivalric romance is characterized by a centerless structure, self-conscious fictionality and a propensity for irony. The form is tied to historical reality, yet represents the archetype of imaginative literature, declaring its fictional status without claiming to embody fixed truths. Through use of irony, the chivalric romance precludes conclusive interpretations, inviting readers to inhabit multifold fantasy worlds while uncompromisingly showing that an ideal world is only a fiction. Thus the reader is enjoined to confront the suspension of truth in their own lives.

The Romance of Arthur, James J. Wilhelm’s classic anthology of Arthurian literature, is an essential text for students of the medieval Romance tradition. This fully updated third edition presents a comprehensive reader, mapping the course of Arthurian literature, and is expanded to cover: key authors such as Chrétien de Troyes and Thomas of Britain, as well as Arthurian texts by women and more obscure sources for Arthurian romance extensive coverage of key themes and characters in the tradition a wide geographical range of texts including translations from Latin, French, German, Spanish, Welsh, Middle English, and Italian sources a broad chronological range of texts, encompassing nearly a thousand years of Arthurian romance. Norris J. Lacy builds on the book’s source material, presenting readers with a clear introduction to many accessible modern-spelling versions of Arthurian texts. The extracts are presented in a new reader-friendly format with detailed suggestions for further reading and illustrations of key places, figures, and scenes. The Romance of Arthur provides an excellent introduction and an extensive resource for both students and scholars of Arthurian literature.

The renowned and illustrious tales of King Arthur, his knights and the Round Table pervade all European vernaculars, as well as the Latin tradition. Arthurian narrative material, which had originally been transmitted in oral culture, began to be inscribed regularly in the twelfth century, developing from (pseudo-)historical beginnings in the Latin chronicles of "historians" such as Geoffrey of Monmouth into masterful literary works like the romances of Chrétien de Troyes. Evidently a big hit, Arthur found himself being swiftly translated, adapted and integrated into the literary traditions of almost every European vernacular during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This Handbook seeks to showcase the European character of Arthurian romance both past and present. By working across national philological boundaries, which in the past have tended to segregate the study of Arthurian romance according to language, as well as by exploring primary texts from different vernaculars and the Latin tradition in conjunction with recent theoretical concepts and approaches, this Handbook brings together a pioneering and more complete view of the specifically European context of Arthurian romance, and promotes the more connected study of Arthurian literature across the entirety of its European context.

The modern concept of passing leisure hours pleasantly would, in the Middle Ages, have fallen under the rubric of Sloth, a deadly sin. Yet aristocrats of past centuries were not always absorbed in affairs of state or warfare. What did they do in moments of peace, "downtime" as we might call it today? In this collection of essays, scholars from various disciplines investigate courtly modes of entertainment ranging from the vigorous to the intellectual: hunting, jousting, horse racing; physical and verbal games; reading, writing, and book ownership. Favorite pastimes spanned differences of gender and age, and crossed geographical and cultural boundaries. Literary and historical examples come from England, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Courtly Pastimes analyzes the underlying rationales for such activities: to display power and prestige, to acquire cultural capital, to instill a sense of community, or to build diplomatic alliances. Performativity − so crucial in social rituals − could become transgressive if taken to extremes. Certain chapters explore the spaces of courtliness: literal or imaginary; man-made, natural, or a hybrid of both. Other chapters concern materiality and visual elements associated with courtly pastimes: from humble children’s toys and playthings to elite tournament attire, castle murals, and manuscript illuminations.

This study first examines the marginal repertoire in two well-known manuscripts, the Psalter of Guy de Dampierre and an Arthurian Romance, within their material and codicological contexts. This repertoire then provides a template for an extended study of the marginal motifs that appear in eighteen related manuscripts, which range from a Bible to illustrated versions of the encyclopedias of Vincent de Beauvais and Brunetto Latini. Considering the manuscript as a whole work of art, the marginalia’s physical relationship to nearby texts and images can shed light on the reception of these illuminated books by their medieval viewers.

A reconsideration of Arthurian compilations in the late middle ages, looking at the complex ways in which they reshape their material for new audiences.

Why would the thirteenth-century French prose Lancelot-Grail Cycle have been attributed to Walter Map, a twelfth-century writer from the Anglo-Welsh borderlands? Joshua Byron Smith sets out to answer this and other questions and offers a new explanation for how narratives about the pre-Saxon inhabitants of Britain circulated in England.